The double-headed serpent in the indigenous art of the Northwest Coast
Date
1983
Authors
Laurence, Margaret Robin
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Abstract
The purpose of our thesis is to establish an iconography and iconology for the double-headed serpent, as imaged in the native art of the Northwest Coast of North America. In order to identify cultural and formal contexts through which to analyze the image, we made a survey of the Northwest Coast collections of five museums , recording all available visual and historical data concerning those artifacts bearing the double-headed serpent configuration. We al so recorded the occurrence of images which appeared to be morphologically or thematically related to the double-headed serpent. Through prior and concomitant readings of the ethnographies and ethnologies, we laid down contextual divisions which formed the framework for our analysis. Thus, double-headed serpent artifacts are identified and discussed in Chapter 2 according to these divisions: mythological occurrences, material occurrences (subdivided into heraldic art , totem poles, architectural fixtures, potlatch accessories, masks and winter ceremonial accessories), and shamanic occurrences, with a special discussion of the relatedness of the double-headed serpent to the northern soul catcher.
Chapter 3 reflects our style analysis, worked through general and particular form and style conventions on the Northwest Coast. The double headed serpent i s identified as proliferating in an area in which two major style impulses, Northern Graphic and Old Wakashan, meet. Also discussed here is the significant des ign principle of split representation, which is uniquely appropriated by the double-headed serpent. The imagers thematic and formal precursors in the prehistoric art of the Northwest Coast are also discussed, with a particular focus on the portable rock art of the Fraser Canyon, Vancouver Island petroglyphs, and a ceremonial whale fin excavated at Ozette. In this chapter, we also review indigenous faunal forms of the Northwest Coast and investigate the correspondence between referants and evolved symbols. The psychic imperatives of the double-headed serpent's diagnostic features are also treated, in an attempt to understand the existential tensions which the image seems to articulate.
Chapter 4 compasses our iconographic and iconological analysis, developed out of the preceding cultural and formal conclusions, and introduces the concept of .the integrative nature of Northwest Coast culture. Subsuming the more obvious heraldic and myth-telling intentions of the image, we identify themes which the double-headed serpent consistently evokes, such as ambivalence, duality, and paradox. Certain significant characteristics emerge and are categorized: transcendence and transformation, serpent and World Tree, magical and ceremonial weaponry, wealth guardian and wealth purveyor, the double-headed serpent as devourer, and the double-headed serpent as sexual/bisexual being. We propose an ultimate identity for the double-headed serpent as archetypal dragon, with reference to occidental and oriental dragon lore and traits, and find in the dragon the consolidation of other significant, contrastive qualities, such as fertility/destruction and menace/apotropaic.
We conclude that the double-headed serpent functions as a multivalent and integrative image on the Northwest Coast, especially among the Kwakiutl for whom it has developed as a deeply felt religious symbol. We also conclude that the double-headed serpent had a prehistoric seat in the southern area of the Northwest Coast, whence it migrated into Kwakiutl territory as a two-dimensional and intrinsically split image. That its original context on the Northwest Coast was probably shamanic is also concluded, as is evident in the many shamanic evocations and associations of the double-headed serpent and in the shamanic understructure of fundamental Northwest Coast social and ceremonial systems.